Samhain!
Samhain!
The Mackenzies didn’t stop to cheer, though many flourished their weapons. The Clan wasn’t much for military formality beyond what was necessary to the task; Bearkiller snap and polish had always struck them as mildly ridiculous, and the ostentatious chivalric pageant of the Association was something they usually mocked. But too many of them knew him personally, at least a man or woman from each Dun, and all of them had too much pride to break stride before the High King who was the son of their Chief.
And Samhain was close; the feast for the dead and the ancestors, when their spirits and the beings of the Otherworld both walked, and were invited in for good or ilclass="underline"
“They wait for you to lead them to battle, Your Majesty,” Ignatius said. “It’s a heavy burden.”
“There go my people,” Rudi said, quoting a favorite saying of his mother’s. “I must hurry to get ahead of them, for I am their leader.”
They mounted their horses, waiting for a break in the road traffic.
“Yet leadership has something else to it,” Ignatius said. “To be a true King is to be touched by something beyond the human. By the finger of God, as David was when he danced before the Tabernacle of the Lord.”
“Beyond, beneath, and yet always kin to it,” Rudi said softly. “For the lord and the land and the folk are one. I may lead them to battle, and the chroniclers may record this or that stroke as mine…yet how much of that is illusion? Such a mighty thing, a battle like this; so many tens of thousands, such courage and fear, rage and desperate cunning, the wills of so many-each of them with a world within their skull, just as I do. It’s not my story any more than it is theirs.”
Samhain!
Samhain!
“Where?” he murmured to himself. “I must know where.”
CHAPTER FIVE
HORSE HEAVEN HILLS
(FORMERLY SOUTH-CENTRAL WASHINGTON)
HIGH KINGDOM OF MONTIVAL
(FORMERLY WESTERN NORTH AMERICA)
NOVEMBER 1ST, CHANGE YEAR 25/2023 AD
Mary Vogeler winked at her twin sister as they settled side by side into the steep upward slope, a vastness of moon-washed rock and sage and occasional scrub conifer. There was just enough of the light of stars and full moon to make the gesture visible at arm’s length, and to see the way Ritva’s answering grin moved her face under the gauze half-mask that covered the front of her hood.
Behind the Ranger scout party the broad slow Columbia was palely luminescent, and deep shadow lay in the gullies that ran south from the hills towards the riverbank. Chill desert air bit as she drew it in slowly through her nose, not as dry as it would be in other seasons and with a little of the creosote scent of sagebrush and the volcanic dirt in which she lay.
And the wool and leather of her clothing and gear, which had the fusty-sweaty-old-socks odor that was unavoidable in the field.
I’ve been on the move for years now, since the Quest began and a lot of the time before. You know, I would really like to spend a while living in places with baths and roofs and windows and fresh underwear, and beds with linen sheets and decent kitchens. Where answering a call doesn’t mean going behind a bush with some leaves in one hand and a spade in the other and then you itch. Preferably a place where nobody was trying to kill me, too, but that may be asking for a little much. I’m not eighteen anymore. I’ve got a man of my own, it’s time to have a home and some kids.
There was time for thought, as long as she didn’t lose focus. They weren’t going to be moving for a few minutes. You took this sort of thing slow, slow and steady, and you tried to think yourself inconspicuous as well as hiding physically. Both the Havel twins were good at that…
Thêl vell! Since I have to do this, it’s good to be on an operation with Sis again, she thought. Though I miss Ingolf something fierce. Granted it’s the best use of our skillsets to have him with that regiment of his and me here, but dammit he makes me feel better. The Quest was…well, not easy, all the running and fighting and getting cut up and scared silly and so forth…but at least it was all personal. This war is too big. I feel like one spindle in a Corvallis linen mill.
Since Mary’s left eye was missing and covered with a soft black eyepatch, that wink had left her blind for an instant. Before she’d lost the eye to a Cutter High Seeker on the Quest she and Ritva had been so identical that one of their favorite pranks as children had been impersonating each other.
I lost the eye. On the other hand, when we threw for Ingolf a little before that I won and that was a big score. Call us even.
She didn’t count the fact that Ritva had saved her life in the fight with the Seeker; they’d been saving each other’s lives since their mid-teens, not long after they left Larsdalen and decided to become Rangers rather than Bearkillers.
Because Mom was getting just fucking impossible. I love her and Mike Jr. too, but I’d have ended up hating them both the way she treated him like Dad’s reincarnation-in-training. Though it doesn’t help that he looks so much like Dad. And he’s not High King, Rudi is. Learn to live with it, Mom! The Music-of-Eru Powers chose him! In his cradle, complete with signs, wonders, portents and everything but a certified letter on parchment with a red wax seal! So Mike’s not going to be High King, so what? He’s going to be Bear Lord of the Outfit, not the third-class cook on a riverboat. If you love Mike that much, you should be glad he’s not saddled with the throne; Juniper envies the hell out of you for exactly that reason. Mike may live to see his grandchildren. Poor Rudi, he’s not only a fated hero but he has to spend most of his time listening to reports and having meetings since he became High King. It must be Angband on stilts.
She tried to imagine an epic about being High King, rather than becoming High King.
Û! she thought. You’d have to…oh, concentrate on his companions or something. And skip a lot of the meetings and reports.
Waiting stretched. The Dúnedain weren’t many, only a troop of thirty and the crews with the boats. There was no doing this by anything but stealth; not by force, and not by the speed that would make them obvious. Wait for the signal, not tense but loose. Tension traveled, it smelled.
A very soft chittering sounded. She rose into a low crouch and moved forward, elf-boots silent even on the rough basalt, keeping the edges of her war-cloak gathered up with a tuck of her fingers on either side. If she tripped over it she’d never hear the last of it from the other Rangers.
Well, never until the enemy killed us, she qualified mentally as she sank down behind another rock.
And then for a long, long time in the Halls of Mandos. Aunt Astrid would…I can’t imagine what she’d do if I came early because of a screwup. Tell me how much better they did things in the old days in Eriador, I suppose. She was my liege-lady and kinswoman and a great leader but…a bit obsessive-compulsive sometimes.